Is a fake NARS Ita comparable to the real deal?

Hi loves,

Not too long ago I finally purchased the highly coveted NARS Ita! I paid $88 for it from Mecca Cosmetica and was absolutely THRILLED. A few weeks later I found a $5 copy of it on eBay, and I just had to buy it and see for myself how different (or similar!) it was to the real thing. For all of the photos, the authentic brush is on the left and the fake is on the right.

I was pretty amazed by how close the fake looked to the real thing, but when I started to use it there were some pretty significant differences that set the real Ita apart. Firstly, the 'NARS' logo isn't stamped as deeply in the fake brush as it is in the authentic one. The fake brush's bristles are slightly longer, and splay a little bit more from their setting in the base of the brush. The brushes are also very soft in comparison to the authentic one, but they aren't as firm and splay quite easily, warping from the original shape of the brush. However, that's not to say that the authentic Ita has rough fibres - both are soft to the touch on the face.

A teeny tiny difference is that each brush has a small code printed into the other side of it - the authentic has 4KHUA while the fake has 4YHUA. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure of the meaning of these codes.

Authentic on top, fake on bottom

The setting that the bristles are placed in is much longer in the fake than in the real one, and from a side-on view you can really see how much wider the fake brush's bristles splay out than the authentic one.

The biggest issue that I had with the fake was that it shed bristles like no other. It shed when I used it and it shed even worse when I went to wash it. I could literally pull the bristles out with no resistance at all. I've yet to have ANY shedding at all with the authentic Ita.

In the end, I'm going to have to recommend the real deal. It's more precise to contour with, and you have a guarantee of quality from NARS that the brush won't shed black hairs EVERYWHERE when you go to use it.